Ty barely noticed the narrowness of the ledge or the rub of his left shoulder against the overhang. He covered the stone pathway with reckless speed, wanting only to get to Janna. With fear like a fist in his throat, he knelt next to her and touched her cheek.
"Janna?"
She tried to speak, couldn't and fought for air.
"Take it easy, sugar," Ty said. "That fool stud knocked the breath out of you."
After a few more moments air returned to Janna in an aching rush. She breathed raggedly, then more evenly.
"Do you hurt anywhere?" Ty asked.
Janna shook her head.
"Have enough air now?"
She nodded.
"Good."
Ty bent and pulled Janna into his arms, hugging her hard, then taking her mouth in a kiss that was both savage and tender. After a long time he lifted his head.
"Don't ever do anything like that again," Ty said roughly. "Nothing's worth your life. Not the stallion. Not the gold. Not anything. Do you hear me, Janna Wayland?"
She nodded, more breathless from Ty's searching, hungry and gentle kiss than from her skirmish with Lucifer.
Ty looked at Janna's eyes. They were clear and warm as summer rain, radiant with emotion, and he felt his heart turn over in his chest. He closed his own eyes, unable to bear the feelings tearing through him, pulling him apart.
Two feet away from Ty's left leg, stone chips exploded, spattering both of them with shards. From the valley below came the sound of rifle fire.
Ty dragged Janna up the trail and around an outcropping of rock until they were out of view of the valley. From ahead came the sound of stones rolling and bouncing as the mustangs scrambled on up the trail.
"When you get to the top, wait ten minutes," Ty said. "If I don't come, get on Zebra and ride like hell for the fort. Don't come back, Janna. Promise me. Don't come back. There's nothing you can do here but get killed."
"Let me stay," she pleaded.
"No," he said. Then he added in a low voice, "Please, Janna. Let me feel that I've given you something. Just once. Just once for all the things you've given to me. Please."
Janna touched Ty's cheek with fingers that trembled. He turned his head and kissed her fingertips very gently.
"Now go," he said softly.
Janna turned and walked away quickly, trying not to cry. She had gone no more than a hundred feet before she heard the harsh, evenly spaced sounds of Ty's carbine firing down into the valley below.
The remaining trail to the top of the plateau was more of a scramble than a walk, for the ravine that the path followed was filled with stony debris and a few hardy evergreens. The mustangs had left ample signs to follow- broken twigs and overturned stones and shallow gouge marks along solid rock.
The few steep pitches were mercifully brief. Within fifteen minutes Janna was standing on top of the plateau. She hadn't heard any sounds of shooting for the last ten minutes as she had climbed upward. She had told herself that that was good, that it meant Ty was on his way up the trail.
She also had told herself he was all right, but tears kept ruining her vision and fear made her body clench.
From where Janna stood on the plateau there was no hint that there might be a trailhead nearby, or even that the long, shallow gully she had just climbed out of was in any way different from any of hundreds of such gullies that fringed the steeper edges of the plateau.
The horses grazed nearby, wary of all sounds and shadows. All that forced Janna to mount Zebra was the memory of Ty's eyes pleading with her to be safe, and the gentle kisses that still burned on her fingertips, sealing her promise. Torn between fear and grief, rebellion and love, Janna mounted Zebra and waited, counting off the minutes.
Three minutes went by. Then five. Eight. Nine. Ten.
I'm safe enough here. It won't hurt to wait just a bit more. The mustangs will tell me if anyone else is near.
Twelve minutes. Fifteen. Seventeen.
Janna had reached eighteen when the mustangs lifted their heads and turned to watch the mouth of the gully with pricked ears and no nervousness whatsoever. Minutes later Ty came scrambling up out of the ravine.
"I told you-ten minutes," he said, breathing heavily.
"I don't know how to c-count," Janna said, trying to blink back tears and laughter at the same time.
Ty swung up on Lucifer, brought the stallion alongside Zebra and gave Janna a fierce kiss.
"Sweet liar."
Ty smacked Zebra hard on the rump, sending the mare into startled flight. Lucifer leaped to follow. Together the two mustangs settled into a ground-covering gallop. The plateau's rumpled surface flew beneath their hooves.
Twice Janna and Ty heard gunfire. Each time they veered more to the east, for the sounds were coming from the north and west. About every ten minutes Janna would slow the pace to a canter, allowing the horses to catch their breath.
Despite the itching of his backbone, Ty never complained about the slower pace. He knew that the mustangs might be called upon to outrun Indians at any moment; the horses wouldn't have a prayer if they were already blown from miles of hard running.
During the third time of resting, the distant crackling of rifle fire drifted to Janna and Ty on the wind. This time the sound was coming from the east.
"Should we- " began Janna.
She was cut off by a curt gesture from Ty. He pulled Lucifer to a stop and sat motionlessly, listening.
"Hear it?" he asked finally.
"The rifles?"
"A bugle."
Janna listened intently. She was turning to tell Ty she couldn't hear anything when the wind picked up again and she heard a faint, distant cry rising and falling.
"I hear it. It must be coming from the flatlands."
"Where's the closest place we can get a good look over the edge?" Ty asked.
"The eastern trailhead is only a few miles from here."
Janna turned Zebra and urged the mare into a gallop once more, not stopping until she came to the crumbling edge of the plateau where the trail began. Lucifer crowded up next to Zebra and looked out over the land, breathing deeply and freely, appearing for all the world as though he had barely begun to tap his strength.
Ty examined the land through his spyglass, sweeping the area slowly, searching for signs Of man. Suddenly he froze and leaned forward. Six miles north and east of his present position, a small column of cavalry was charging over the land, heading south, sweeping a handful of renegades before it. Well behind the first column of soldiers, a larger one advanced at a much more sedate pace.
Ty swung the spyglass to look to the south, closer in to the plateau's edge.
"Christ almighty," Ty swore. "Cascabel's got an ambush set up where the trail goes through a ravine. That first group of renegades is the bait. He's got enough warriors hidden to slaughter the first group of pony soldiers before the rear column can get there to help."
"Can we get down in time to warn them?"
Grimly Ty looked at the trail down the east face of the plateau. It was even more precipitous than he had remembered. It was also their only hope of getting to the soldiers before Cascabel did.
"Would it do any good to tell you to stay here?" Ty asked.
"No."
"You're a fool, Janna Wayland."
Ty jerked his hat down on his forehead, settled his weight into the rope stirrups, gave a hair-raising battle cry and simultaneously booted Lucifer hard in the ribs.
The stallion lunged over the rim and was launched onto the steep trail before he had a chance to object. Front legs stiff, all but sitting on his hocks, Lucifer plunged down the first quarter mile of the trail like a great black cat. In helping the stallion not to overrun his balance, Ty braced his feet in the rope stirrups and leaned so far back that his hat brushed the horse's hard-driving rump.