"Will he stay there?"
Janna wanted to say yes, but she knew Lucifer too well. He had been driven from his preferred range in the past; he had always returned to Black Plateau, often with new mares he had run off from ranches or other wild herds. The stone canyons, year-round seeps and untrammeled space of the land spreading out from the plateau seemed to have an indelible allure for the big stallion. Year after year he returned, no matter how hard man chased him. But this time he would be chased by bullets that even his strong legs couldn't outrun.
The thought was unbearable to Janna. There was only one way she might be able to prevent Lucifer's death-by betraying him to a man who wouldn't use a gun.
Janna looked up into Ty's steady green glance and prayed that she was making the right decision.
"The best grazing and water for a hundred miles in any direction is around Black Plateau," she said, her mouth dry. "I know every seep, every bit of cover, every place where grass grows lush and thick. I'll take you to each secret place until we find Lucifer, but first you have to promise me one thing."
The unhappiness and determination in Janna's face made Ty wish for a moment that he had never heard of the big black stallion. But he had heard of Lucifer, and so had every other man from the Rio Grande to the Snake River. The stallion's time as a free-ranging mustang was rapidly coming to an end, and Janna knew it as well as Ty did. That was why she was blinking back tears and trying to speak.
"I'll be as gentle as possible with him," Ty said in a low voice, taking Janna's hand between his own. "I don't want to break Lucifer's spirit. I just want to breed him with some fine mares. I'll take him to Logan's ranch in Wyoming and let him run with the remuda while I build my own ranch. For Lucifer, it will be almost as good as running free down here. He'll be safe, Janna. No man will come after him with a rifle or a whip.
"And if he can't accept capture," Ty continued, stroking Janna's hand with his fingertips, "I'll turn Lucifer loose myself. I'd rather that he die free than live in a cage with eyes as dull as stones. Is that what you wanted me to promise?"
She drew a shaking breath. "Thank you, but I already knew those things about you or I'd never have spoken in the first place and offered to help you."
"Then is it money you want? I don't have much, but I'll be glad to-"
"No," she interrupted swiftly. "I'd never take money for Lucifer. I want you to promise that you'll let me try to gentle him first. I couldn't bear to see him brought down by a rope and broken by force."
Ty thought of the stallion's raw power and his hard, flashing hooves. "No. It's much too dangerous."
For a long moment Janna looked at Ty's face. The dying rays of the sun revealed a determination as great as her own. Without a word she eased her hand from his grasp, tossed the rain poncho aside and went about smoothing out a place to sleep for the night. As she worked Ty watched her in silence, wondering what she was thinking.
Finally the lightning barrage ended, leaving only a hard, steady rain. Ty looked over at Janna, who was hatf-reclining against the stone wall. In the darkness he couldn't be sure whether she was asleep. He thought she was.
"Janna?" he called softly.
No answer came.
Ty pulled on the rain poncho and walked from the protection of the ledge. If he had been camping with one of his brothers, he wouldn't have gone more than ten feet before relieving himself. As it was, he went considerably farther.
When he came back Janna was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
The cold rain made Janna shiver and long for the bedroll she had left in her winter camp, but no matter how much it rained, she didn't stop to find shelter from the downpour. As long as it rained her tracks would be washed out. Besides, she was less than three miles from one of her Black Plateau caches. By morning she would be warm and dry and sleeping in a place no man would ever find.
Not even Ty MacKenzie.
When the clouds finally dissolved into streamers of mist buffeted by a playful wind, Janna was beginning to wish she hadn't left Zebra behind. But she hadn't been able to bring herself to leave Ty afoot in a land teeming with Indian renegades. Zebra would at least take him as far as the thousand hidden canyons and secret springs of Black Plateau before she trotted off to look for Lucifer's herd once more.
And Janna had no doubt that it would be toward Black Plateau that Ty headed, rather than toward the safety of the fort. He wouldn't leave the territory until he had what he had come for-Lucifer.
Hie cold light of a new moon gave small illumination and less comfort to Janna as she walked steadily toward the dark bulk of the plateau, which rose from the land until it shut out the stars along the horizon. When she could see the faint notch she called Wind Gap, she turned west. Alternately running and walking, she came closer to the place that was as much a home as she had ever had.
In the darkness before dawn, it took Janna three tries to find the mound of broken boulders where she had stashed a spare canteen, blanket, knife and matches. The blanket was mouse chewed and musty but dry. She wrapped it around her and filled her canteen from a hole that had been worn in solid stone, creating a bowl that held rainwater after a storm.
Canteen and knife on her hip, dry matches in her shirt pocket, Janna climbed farther up the canyon until she came to a place where water from runoff streams had long ago worn out a room-size hole in the canyon wall. Water no longer reached the hollow; even in the highest flood it remained safe and dry. By the time she scrambled up the last steep pitch of rock to the east-facing hollow, Janna was trembling with hunger, cold and exhaustion.
Because the wind was from the north, only the hardest gusts reached her. She thought longingly of the hot spring in her winter camp, and of sunlight and of beds fragrant with pifion. Then she thought of the warmth of Ty's big body, and the sweet friction of his chest against her back, his thighs against her thighs, his arms like warm steel around her as he hung on to Zebra's long mane.
The curious, fluttering warmth returned to the pit of J anna's stomach, making her shiver with something more than cold. She remembered Ty's strength, the feel of his flexed muscle when he had lifted her and she had balanced herself by hanging on to his arms. The memory made her palms tingle as though she had been rubbing them along his sleeves. She thought of the strained, intent look on his face when he had bent down to her in the thicket where he had startled her from a deep sleep; and she wondered what would have happened if Zebra hadn't scented the renegades on the wind, ending the hushed expectancy of the moment.
After a time Janna finally fell asleep. Her dreams were as restless as the wind.
Ty slept until the wind swept the sky free of clouds, allowing the moon's narrow silver smile to illuminate the land.
"How about it, girl?" Ty said very softly. "You afraid of the dark?"
Zebra tugged impatiently against the hand restraining her nose. She wanted to be free to go down the trail.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Which will you go after, Janna or that big black stud?"
Zebra snorted.
"Well, I'll tell you, girl," Ty said, swinging onto the mare's warm back, "I hope it's Janna. When I find her, I'm going to…"
Ty's voice faded. He didn't know what he was going to do when he found Janna. His dreams had left him restive and aroused, and as surly as a bear with a broken tooth. He was furious that Janna had slipped out into the stormy night without so much as a makeshift poncho to turn away the rain. No matter how many times he told himself that she had earned whatever her stubbornness brought her-or that she was obviously able to take care of herself in any case-the thought of her being wet and cold and hungry haunted him.