The hoof prints, which had been a mixture of shod and unshod, abruptly diverged. The unshod prints continued without interruption. The shod hoofprints veered starkly to the right. Ty had no doubt that he was seeing traces of the instant when the renegades had spotted Troon; the prints of Troon's horse were inches deep in the ground at the point where the horse had dug in and spun away from the renegades. Troon had chosen to flee along the rumpled, downward sloping land that led to the plateau's northern edge. There the land was rocky, broken, full of clefts and hollows and sheer-sided ravines where a man could hope to hide.
If Troon were lucky, he might even survive. Ty hoped he didn't. Any man who would shoot at a horse like Lucifer out of greed deserved to die. Without a further thought, Ty veered off after the stallion, leaving Troon to whatever fate luck and the renegades would visit upon him.
The stallion's tracks showed no sudden gouges or changes in direction as Troon's had. When the renegades had spotted Troon, apparently Lucifer hadn't been within sight. The wild horse had cannily chosen a route that looped back toward the eastern end of Raven Creek's long, winding meadow. From there Lucifer could head for the northeast edge of the plateau and slide on his black hocks down into Mustang Canyon or he could run southeast and then straight south, using the entire surface of the plateau, losing himself among the pines, meadows, ridges and ravines that covered the land's rugged surface.
Assuming, of course, that Lucifer was in any shape for a long, hard run. It was an assumption Ty wasn't prepared to make. The stallion's tracks were becoming closer together.
His strides were shortening as though he were winded, and the blood splotches were bigger and more frequent. Part of the horse's slowed progress might have been simply that the land was broken and rolling here, with more uphill than down as Lucifer headed straight toward the eastern lip of the plateau. And the shortening strides might also have been the result of injury.
Ty remembered Janna saying that she had once seen signs that Lucifer had skidded down the steep trail on the plateau's east edge in order to evade mustangers. He wondered if the stallion had remembered his past success and was laboring toward the east trail in hope of another such escape.
But Ty didn't think Lucifer would make it. The path on the east face was too far, too steep, and the blood sign along the stallion's trail was almost continuous now. The land here was steep, rising sharply into one of the many low ridges that marked the plateau's rumpled surface.
I hope they catch you, Troon. I hope they cut off your-
Ty's bitter thoughts of vengeance were wiped from his mind the instant he saw over the crest of the ridge to the land below. Less than a quarter mile away, Janna was running flat out down the slope. Her course paralleled a narrow, steep ravine that cut into the body of the ridge. Lucifer was forty feet ahead of her, veering toward the ravine as though he were planning to jump it, but it was too wide a leap for an injured horse. A half mile off to the right, all but concealed in another fold of land, a dust cloud of renegades was in wild pursuit of Joe Troon, who apparently had abandoned the idea of making a run to the northwest and Raven Creek Trail. Instead he was spurring his horse toward the east, leading the renegades toward Janna, who couldn't see them yet but almost certainly could hear their chilling cries.
Turn around and hide, Janna! Go to ground, Ty commanded silently. Don't get yourself caught trying to help Lucifer.
The stallion reached the edge of the ravine and threw himself toward the far side. His forelegs found purchase on the opposite bank of the ravine, but his left rear leg gave way when it should have provided support. He was too weak to struggle over the lip to safety. Kicking and screaming in a mixture of fear, pain and rage, the black horse skidded and rolled into the narrow, brush-choked bottom of the ravine twenty feet below. There he lay on his side, thrashing wildly in a futile attempt to regain his feet and scramble to safety.
Without pausing, Janna threw herself over the edge of the ravine, hurtling down into the tangle of brush and flailing hooves.
There was only one way Ty could save Janna from being injured or killed by the trapped stallion. Even as he whipped the carbine to his shoulder and took aim at Lucifer's beautiful black head, he saw hooves glance off Janna's body. At the precise instant he let out his breath and took the last of the slack from the trigger, Janna's back appeared in the gun sight. She had thrown herself over the stallion's head, pinning it to the earth, ensuring that the horse wouldn't be able to struggle to his feet.
Get out of there, you little fool! Ty screamed silently. You can't hold him. He'll beat you to death with those big hooves.
The ravine Lucifer was trapped in was a long crease running down the side of the ridge at whose top Ty waited. It would be an easy shot, no more than three hundred feet. He had made more difficult shots with a pistol. A savage fusillade of shots and triumphant shouts came from the direction of Troon and the renegades. Ty's attention never wavered from the bottom of the ravine, nor did the tension of his finger lift on the trigger.
A man's screams told Ty that either Troon or a renegade had just been wounded. Ty's glance remained fixed on the ravine bottom where Janna struggled to master the big horse. Ty knew that sooner or later Lucifer's struggles to free his head would throw Janna aside. When that happened, Ty's finger would tighten on the trigger and the stallion would die.
What the hell…?
Janna had one knee pinning the stallion's muzzle to the ground and the other knee just behind his ears. She was literally kneeling on the horse and ripping her shirt off at the same time.
A crescendo of triumphant whoops and shots told Ty that the chase was over for Joe Troon. Ty still didn't look up from the ravine; he wouldn't have walked across a street to aid the man who had captured Janna once and bragged to a bartender about what he would do when he caught her again. As far as Ty was concerned, Troon had gone looking for trouble and he had found more than he wanted. It often happened that way to a man who drank too much and thought too little. Ty's only regret was that Troon hadn't bought it sooner, before he had led the renegades back to within a quarter mile of Janna.
Over the carbine's steel barrel, Ty watched while Janna turned her torn shirt into a makeshift blindfold and struggled to secure it around Lucifer's eyes. Abruptly the stallion stopped thrashing around. With rapid movements Janna whipped a few turns of cloth around the horse's muzzle. When she was finished, Lucifer could open his mouth no more than an inch. She bent over him once more, holding him down while she stroked his lathered neck.
Ty could see the shudders of fear that rippled over the stallion with each stroke of Janna's hand. Ty could also see that the horse was no longer a danger to her; blindfolded, muzzled, pinned in place by Janna's weight, Lucifer was all but helpless.
Very slowly Ty eased his finger off the trigger and sank down behind the cover of a pinon tree that clung to the rocky ridge top. Screened by dark green branches, Ty pulled out his spyglass and looked off to the right. A single glance confirmed what his ears had already told him: Joe Troon had made his last mistake.
Ty looked around carefully and decided that he had the best position from which to protect the ravine. Pulling his hat down firmly, he chose a comfortable shooting position, shrugged out of his pack and put two open boxes of ammunition within easy reach. Stomach against the hard earth, green eyes sighting down the carbine's metal barrel, Ty settled in to wait and see if the renegades were going to come toward the ravine when they were finished looting and mutilating Troon's body.