Janna's hopes sank when Zebra scrambled around a tight corner and was confronted by a rock wall. Nothing that in any way resembled a trail broke the sheer rise of stone. Apparently Janna had been following a random chute paved with fallen rocks rather than a ghost path left by an ancient people.
For a long time she simply sat, staring at the end of her carefully constructed and entirely false logic of hope. However Mad Jack might have come into the valley, it wasn't this way; and this had been by far the best hope of finding his path. The other possibilities-the random ravines and slender runoff gullies and crevices that opened into the narrowest end of the valley where Janna was-were much less likely to lead to the top of the plateau than the ground she had just covered.
But Janna had no choice except to try the other possibilities. No matter how small they were, they were better than the chance of sneaking past Cascabel and his renegades while they were camped outside the valley's only exit like a horde of hungry cats waiting at a mouse hole.
There was barely enough room for Zebra to turn around in order to head back where she had come from. Lucifer saw Zebra turning and followed suit. He led the retreat over the rough ground at a brisk trot, relieved to be free of the narrow passage between broken walls of stone. Zebra was equally relieved. She followed after the stallion eagerly.
They had retreated no more than a hundred feet when Janna noticed a small ravine that she hadn't seen before, for it joined at an oblique angle to the main passage and was walled off by a pediment of stone. Immediately she turned Zebra toward the side ravine. The mare tossed her head, not wanting to leave Lucifer and enter the narrow gulch.
"Come on, girl. There's nothing up this trail but stone and shadows and maybe, just maybe, a way out of here."
Zebra didn't budge.
Janna stopped using pressures of her hand to guide the mare. Instead, she pulled on the knotted hackamore reins Ty had insisted that Zebra be trained to wear. Reluctantly the mare turned away from Lucifer and walked into the gulch. Once past the rocky outcropping that guarded the ravine's narrow mouth, the passage opened out again, becoming wider than the slot where Ty waited for a renegade who was brave or foolish enough to show himself.
Janna didn't know if it were wishful thinking or truth, but it seemed to her that the new path had once been made more level by a series of broad steps composed of stony rubble, which followed the steep rise of the ravine farther and farther back into the body of the plateau. The steps, or ramps, had since largely crumbled and been washed away beneath torrential rains, but enough remained to give a mustang adequate footing.
To Janna's surprise, Lucifer followed, as though determined not to lose sight of Zebra in the midst of echoing stone ravines. The path snaked higher and higher, sometimes scrambling over stony ridges to follow a different runoff course up the broken walls that constituted the western side of the valley.
There were places where Janna was certain that rock must have been hammered away to make passage possible. In other places she was just as certain that nothing had touched the trail but wind and water, sun and storm. Then she would see gouge marks on the stone and wonder if they weren't the result of intelligence rather than past landslides.
The trail came to yet another narrowing of the branching network of runoff channels that covered the eroding face of the western ramparts of the valley. Without being urged, Zebra scrambled and lunged over the small rise, for there had been many such changes of direction in the past half mile.
There was sun shining on the rise, for they had climbed far enough to be beyond the reach of lengthening shadows. Janna shaded her eyes and looked ahead, confidently expecting to find an obvious way to proceed. She saw nothing except a lateral crack in the stone cliff, but the crack was too small to be called a passage. Turning slowly, she looked over her trail. Her breath came in with a sharp sound. She was nearly to the top of the stone ramparts that surrounded her hidden valley.
"There has to be a way to get out from here," Janna said aloud as she stroked Zebra absently.
For several minutes Janna looked at the dubious lateral crevice that angled up and across the remaining cliff. The narrow ledge she saw might or might not lead to the top of the plateau. If the ledge ended short of the top, she would be stuck; there was no place for a horse to turn around. If the mustangs entered the crack they would be committed to going up, not down.
Janna slid off Zebra, then pressed the mare's nose in a signal for her to stay behind. Ears pricked, nostrils flared, the mustang watched her mistress take the narrow trail. Janna looked back only once to assure herself that Zebra wasn't going to stray.
After Janna had gone fifteen feet, she was certain that she was going the right way. The crack became a very narrow ledge, too narrow for a horse to pass safely. Marks that could have been left by a chisel or hammer showed in the stone. Apparently the ancient tribe had widened and leveled a natural split in the rock face until it became a ledge just wide enough to take a man on foot. With overhanging rock on her left, a path no more than twenty inches wide at her feet-and sometimes less, if the rock had crumbled away-and a sheer drop to the valley floor on her right, she scrambled the length of the crack.
When Janna vanished around a column of rock on the far end of the ledge Zebra nickered as though to call a foal back to her side. When that didn't work, the mustang neighed loudly. Lucifer added a ringing, imperious command that carried from one end of the hidden valley to the other.
Janna popped back into view, sliding and skidding down to the ledge, desperate to calm the stallion before he alerted half of Utah Territory. Despite the need for haste, Janna slowed to a very careful walk while she negotiated the dangerous ledge. Zebra whickered softly in encouragement or warning, then nuzzled Janna when she was within reach once more. Having achieved his purpose in calling back a straying member of his band, Lucifer made no further noise.
"Lord, what a bugle you have," Janna said to Lucifer, who ignored her irritation. She looked back at the ledge and shook her head. "I know, that's a scary path even for humans. I can imagine what it must look like to you. But you didn't give me a chance to find out if the rest of the trail- if it really is a trail-goes all the way to the top."
After a few moments spent reassuring the horses, Janna started toward the ledge again. She had taken no more than two steps when she heard a barrage of rifle fire.
She froze, listening intently, trying to decide where the shots were coming from. The lighter, rhythmic barks of Ty's Winchester resolved the issue beyond a doubt. The sounds were coming from the cleft that Ty had remained behind to guard. The Indians must have decided to try rushing the cleft's entrance, or perhaps it was only a feint.
Either way, Janna wasn't comforted. The number of shots that were being fired told her that renegade reinforcements must have arrived. If they timed their attack carefully, they could provide cover for one another while they reloaded their rifles. But Ty was alone in the rocky cleft with no one to cover him while he reloaded.
Chapter Forty-One
The trip back down the ancient trail took much less time than the trip up had, but it seemed like an eternity to Janna. The instant it was safe to demand speed from Zebra, she kicked the mare into a hard gallop that ended only at the shadowed entrance to the cleft. Heart hammering, Janna leaped from Zebra and ran into the dark opening just as there was a renewed fusillade of rifle fire. The cleft distorted sounds, making them seem to come from nearby and far away all at once. She kept hoping to hear the carbine's lighter sound but heard only her own breath and the erratic bark of renegade rifles.
Just as Janna rounded the last bend before the exit, Ty's carbine resumed its rhythmic, rapid firing. She slowed slightly, almost dizzy with relief.