Without warning the stallion's injured leg gave way and he lost his footing. Ty threw all his muscle behind the hackamore, forcing Lucifer back onto his haunches. Front legs braced, hooves digging into the path, the horse slid about twenty feet before he came to a stop. Sitting up like a big black hound, the stallion sweated nervously while displaced pebbles bounced and rattled down the slope. Right beside him, Ty sweated just as hard. It had been much too close to disaster. Someone with less strength than Ty wouldn't have been able to prevent the horse from falling.
Janna held her fist against her teeth as she forced back a scream. Ty had taken a terrible gamble, for if his weight and leverage hadn't been enough to counteract gravity, he would have been swept away with Lucifer in a long, lethal fall.
"That's it, son," Ty said, his voice soothing despite the hammer blows of his own heart. "You rest and get your wind back. That old leg just keeps fooling you. You expect it to be there for you and it isn't, not the way you need it to be. That's the problem with strength. You get to counting on it and then it lets you down. So use your head instead. You can't just rush the path and scramble and slide and get it over with the way you would if you had your usual muscle and coordination. You have to take it nice and slow."
When Lucifer's skin no longer rippled with nervous reaction, Ty gradually released his pressure on the hackamore. Gingerly the stallion shifted his weight forward and began descending once more. As though he had understood Ty's words, the mustang moved more slowly now, demanding less of his injured leg.
Even so, by the time Lucifer reached the end of the steepest portion of the path, Janna was trembling with a fear she had never known for herself. When both man and horse were on safe ground, she let out a shaky breath and ran to Ty, throwing herself at him, holding on to him with fierce strength despite her bruised arm.
"I was so frightened," Janna said against Ty's neck. "All I could think of was what would happen if Lucifer got to sliding too fast or lost his footing completely and you couldn't get out of the way in time."
Ty's arms closed around Janna, lifting her off her feet. "The same thought occurred to me about every other step," he said roughly, "but worst of all was watching you stand in front of Zebra and knowing there wasn't a damn thing I could do if things went to hell." He held Janna hard and close, savoring the feel of her in his arms, her living warmth and resilience and the sweet rush of her breath against his neck. "God, little one, it's good to be alive and holding you."
A cool wind swirled down the plateau's face, trailing the sound of thunder behind. Reluctantly Ty released Janna and set her back on her feet. A moment later he fished the crumpled rain poncho from his backpack. Without a word he tugged the waterproof folds over Janna.
"That should do it," he said. "Now let's get off this exposed slope before lightning has better luck at killing us than that damn trail did."
With the casual strength that kept surprising Janna, Ty tossed her onto Zebra's back.
"Don't wait for me. Just get off the slope," Ty said to Janna. He stepped back and smacked Zebra lightly on her haunch. "Get to it, horse. And you keep your rider hair side up or I'll skin you for a sofa covering."
Zebra took to the path again with an eagerness that said more plainly than words that the mustang understood the danger of being caught out in the open during a storm. Lucifer was just as eager to see the last of the exposed trail leading from the foot of the plateau to the lowlands beyond, but his injury forced a slower pace. Limping heavily, the stallion started off down the rocky decline.
Out in the distance to the east, blue-black buttes and localized thunderstorms were intermixed with golden cataracts of light where sunshine poured through gaps between squall lines. Overhead, lightning played through the massed clouds and the wind increased in power.
By the time Lucifer and Ty reached the place where the plateau merged with the lower canyon lands beyond, the last luminous shafts of sunlight had slowly merged with the thunderstorm gathering overhead, leaving behind an odd, sourceless gloaming that made every feature of the land stand forth as though outlined in pale gold. The effect lasted for only a few minutes, until the first sweeping veils of rain came down, blending sky and land into one seamless whole. Lightning danced across the land on incandescent feet, while thunder rumbled behind its shimmering, elusive mistress.
"Well, son," Ty said, pulling his hat down tighter against the wind and pelting rain, "this cloud's silver lining is that no self-respecting renegade is going to be out chasing around in the rain."
If that fact cheered Lucifer, the horse didn't show it. He limped along with his ears half-laid-back in warning of his surly temper. Ty felt the same way himself. With luck the storm would turn out to be a small, fast-moving squall line. Without luck, the rain would last for hours. With bad luck, the slot leading into Janna's hidden canyon would be too deep with runoff water from the thunderstorm for them to enter and they would have to spend another night in the open.
Janna was worrying about the same thing. If she were alone, she would have hurried Zebra toward the miles-distant slot. But she wasn't alone, and despite Lucifer's best efforts, his shuffling, painful walk meant that it would be several hours before they reached the haven of her hidden canyon.
The rain quickly limited visibility to a few hundred yards, making scouting both impossible and unnecessary. Janna turned Zebra and retraced her steps until she saw Lucifer and Ty. She slid off Zebra arid fell into step beside Ty.
"Go ahead on to the canyon," he said. "No sense in you catching your death out in the rain."
"It will be dark an hour before you get to the slot. You'll miss it. Besides, you know how it is with misery. I was feeling like a little company."
Ty thought of objecting more forcefully to Janna's presence but didn't. Part of him agreed with her that he would have trouble finding the narrow slot in the dark in the rain, because the only other time he had been through it from this direction he had been more dead than alive. But the real reason he didn't object was that he enjoyed having Janna beside him, her fingers laced through his, their hands slowly warming with shared body heat.
"Janna?" Ty asked after a long time of rain and silence, voicing a thought that had been nagging at him for hours.
"Yes?"
"Why did you risk your life holding on to Lucifer in that ravine?"
"I didn't want Troon to get him again."
"But you heard the renegades. You had to figure that Troon was as good as dead. You could have let Lucifer go, but you didn't. You hung on despite the danger to yourself."
Janna said nothing.
"Sugar? Why?"
"I promised you a chance to gentle Lucifer," Janna said simply. "There would never be a better chance than in that small ravine."
Ty swore very softly. "I thought it was something crazy like that. Listen to me. You're free of that promise you made. Do you hear me? If Lucifer decides to take off in twelve different directions, that's my problem, not yours. You just get the hell out of the way where you won't get hurt." Ty waited but she said nothing. " Janna?"
"I heard you."
"Do I have your word that if Lucifer bolts or goes loco, you'll get out of the way instead of trying to help?"
"Ty-"