«I want a man to care for me,» Eve said finally.
«That’s what I thought,» Reno said. «Your comfort and to hell with his.»
«That’s not what I meant!»
«Horseshit.»
«I was talking about being loved,» she said passionately, «not about being kept like a princess on a satin cushion!»
Hastily Eve backed up as Reno stood and began fastening his pants with angry, abrupt motions. He cursed steadily, disgusted with himself and with the saloon girl who could make him ache like no other woman ever had.
«No matter how hard you get me,» Reno said in a savage voice, «you won’t make me beg for the cold chains of marriage.»
Reno reached down, swept up his six-gun, and spun its cylinder to check the load. His words were like the gun itself, cold, hard, unrelenting.
«Women sell themselves into marriage the same way whores sell their bodies for an hour at a time,» Reno said. «Women never just give themselves out of love to a man who has promised them nothing in return but his own love.»
«Is that how it was with Willow and Caleb?» Eve challenged.
Reno’s mouth shifted into a cold smile. «They’re the exception that proves Reno’s Golden Rule.»
He holstered the gun with a single smooth motion and looked at her. The bleak expression on his face made her shiver.
«What rule?» Eve asked, knowing as she spoke that she wouldn’t like the answer.
She was right.
«You can’t count on women,» Reno said, «but you can count on gold.»
11
Before dawn was more than a vague promise along the eastern horizon, Reno and Eve were on the trail. All morning he divided his attention between the landscape and the journals. He hadn’t spoken two words to Eve since he had told her about his own version of the Golden Rule.
By noon, Eve was becoming tired of her one-sided conversations with the lineback dun. The two Shaggies weren’t any better. In fact, they were worse. They wouldn’t so much as flick an ear in her direction when she spoke to them.
«Part mule, just like he is,» Eve said clearly.
If Reno heard — and she was sure he had — he didn’t even bother to look in her direction. He just kept opening first one journal, then the other, bracing the books on his thigh while he tried to find something.
«Can I help?» Eve asked finally.
Reno shook his head without looking up.
Another mile went by with no change except that Reno stopped long enough to get out his spyglass and take a good look at the land ahead and behind. Then he collapsed the glass and urged Darlin’ forward.
In the days past, the silence of the trail hadn’t bothered Eve at all. In fact, she had found it peaceful. It gave her as much time as she wanted to look at the colorful, ever-changing rock formations and imagine how they had come to be as they were.
This morning was different. Reno’s silence goaded Eve in a way she didn’t understand.
«Are we lost?» Eve asked finally.
Reno didn’t answer.
«Now who’s sulking?» she muttered.
«Dry up, saloon girl. I’m just looking for a way around that.»
Eve looked beyond Reno’s finger and saw nothing but another dry watercourse winding down to another notch in the land, one more step in what she privately called God’s Staircase down to the bottom of the stone maze of canyons.
«We’ve gone through worse,» she said.
«The back of my neck itches.»
«Maybe I didn’t get off all the soap.»
Reno turned and looked at her with glittering green eyes. «Are you offering to try again?»
«Your throat in one hand and a razor in the other?» Eve asked sweetly. «Don’t tempt me, gunfighter.»
Reno looked at the girl who last night had been a summer storm, wild and sultry. Just the memory of it made his blood run savagely, swelling and hardening him in a torrid rush. But in the end she had refused him the very thing she had held out as a lure.
At least he had the bitter satisfaction of knowing that he wasn’t the only one who had slept restlessly last night, raked by claws of unfulfilled desire.
«Wait here,» he said. «I’m going to see if there are any tracks heading into the notch. If anything happens to me, turn and run for Cal’s ranch.»
It wasn’t the first time Reno had left Eve in order to reconnoiter, but it was the first time he had so flatly warned of danger. She watched anxiously while he quartered back and forth on either side of the most obvious routes into the notch.
Finally Reno signaled Eve forward. While she brought the packhorses up, he drew his six-gun, spun the cylinder once to check the load, and holstered the gun again. Then he reached back and pulled another six-gun and two spare cylinders from a saddlebag. With them came an odd harness, rather like a Mexican bandolier rigged to hold more than just ammunition.
The second pistol was already fully loaded. So were the two extra cylinders. The spare gun went into a holster on the bandolier. The extra, loaded cylinders went into special loops.
Eve watched the preparations with unhappy eyes as he checked the ammunition loops one by one.
«Is there something you aren’t telling me?» she asked.
Reno’s mouth turned up at one corner. «Hardly. I’ve always told you exactly what was on my mind.»
«You didn’t use a second pistol before,» Eve said.
«Cal’s journal mentions a passage up ahead so narrow you can’t swing a cat.»
«Can a horse get through?»
«Yes, but my repeating rifle is no good in a box like that,» Reno said calmly.
«I see.»
Nervously Eve took off her hat, tucked up wisps of hair, and looked everywhere but at Reno’s ice green eyes. She didn’t want him to know how fearful she felt.
And how alone.
«What about my shotgun?» she asked after a moment.
«Use it, but make damn sure you hit what you aim at. A ricochet cuts you up worse than a regular bullet.»
Eve nodded.
«Are your reins still tied together?» Reno asked.
She nodded again.
«Take Shaggy One off the lead and put the packhorses between us,» he said.
Eve’s head turned swiftly toward him. «Why?»
Reno saw the shadows in her golden eyes and felt like pulling her into his arms to reassure her.
But reassurance would be a lie. The way ahead was dangerous, and Reno’s instincts were riding him like iron spurs. Reassuring Eve wouldn’t be a kindness. She would need all her wariness. So would he.
«There are a lot of tracks,» Reno said. «The ground is too sandy to be sure if it’s mustangs or shod horses. If Slater’s up ahead, he’ll be shooting at me. If you’re too close, you could catch a bullet. So put the packhorses between us.»
«I’ll take my chances on a bullet.»
Reno’s left eyebrow rose in a black arc. «Suit yourself. Either way, take off the lead rope.»
«If I were going to suit myself,» Eve said distinctly as she began working over the lead rope, «I’d stay away from the notch.»
«It’s the only route to the Spanish mine marked in your journal, unless you want to go all the way back through the Rockies and take the route up from Santa Fe.»
«Perdition,» Eve muttered. «It would be spring before we got back here.»
«This route also leads to the only sure water.»
Eve sighed. She had never realized how much water it took to keep horses going, and how precious water could be.
«Maybe Slater gave up,» she said.
She leaned over in the saddle and tied the lead rope around Shaggy One’s neck.
«He might have given up on punishing a cheating saloon girl, but I don’t think he’ll give up on gold. Or,» Reno added sarcastically, «on the man who helped to shoot his twin brother’s gang to pieces.»