«I’d have come anyway,» Willow admitted. «I couldn’t bear home anymore. There was nothing left but memories of a better time.»

Willow fell silent after that. Caleb didn’t try to lure her into more conversation. It was safer that way, both for his alertness and for keeping the distance he knew was necessary between himself and Reno’s woman. It was far too easy to like Willow, to enjoy her laughter and her silences, to remember what it had been like to feel her body soften and turn to warm, sweet honey in his arms.

Fancy woman. That’s all she is. Sweet Jesus, why can’t I remember that when I look at her? Why is she under my skin and in my blood?

The answer was as simple and as indelible as the instant his hand had slid between thin layers of cotton and felt the sultry woman heat of her licking over his fingertips. He had never had a woman want him that much, that fast, that hot. The memory of it hardened him in a bittersweet rush, leaving him achingly aware of just how much a man he could be with a woman like Willow Moran.

Caleb wrenched his attention from what he couldn’t have to the huge mountain park spreading away on three sides. From time to time he slowed the pace to a walk and checked their position against the peaks. Once he took a compass, a pencil, and his father’s frayed, leatherbound journal from his saddlebags. After a few minutes he drew out his own journal. He compared the compass readings with the lines he had written three years ago, compared his drawing with the peaks to the left, and nodded. Although he had not ridden this side of the peaks before, he knew where he was.

«Where are we headed?» Willow asked, coming alongside.

It was the first word either of them had spoken in several hours. Neither one had found the silence uncomfortable. They were accustomed to their own company.

«You tell me,» Caleb said dryly. «The SanJuans are south and west of us. We could go pretty much straight south between ranges for a few days and cut across just north of San Luis peak. Or we could go over the divide west of here and then go south. Or we could do a little of both.»

«Which is quicker?»

He shrugged. «Going south might be easier but would take longer. Going west would be easy for a day, then there’s a long climb over the divide and some zigzagging on the other side. Depends on whether your man really is on one of the Gunnison’s tributaries or if maybe he’s on the Animas or the Dolores or the San Miguel or any of ten other rivers worth naming.»

Willow hesitated. «The Gunnison is the only river Matt mentioned, but I’m not sure he’s on a direct tributary. He did say there’s a hot spring and a creek and a high, tiny valley surrounded by mountain peaks except for a really steep climb to the entrance.»

Caleb made a sound of disgust. «You’ve just described the whole damned San Juan region. Mountains and hot springs. Hell, there are hot springs all around us now and we’re not even there yet.»

«What about the valley?»

«It’s called a hanging valley and the Rockies are full of them.»

«A hanging valley?» she asked, frowning. «What’s that?»

«See that ridge off to the right, on the same line as the beaver pond?»

«Yes.»

«Look straight up from there.»

After a minute Willow said, «All I can see is a cascade jumping down the mountain.»

«That’s it. Hanging valleys are hidden, but the creeks that drain them aren’t.»

«I don’t understand.»

Caleb frowned. «It’s like someone broke a valley in half or quarters, set each piece like astairstep up the mountainside, and then strung them together with a creek. Since there’s no exit or entrance to the valleys but a waterfall or a steep cascade, and they overhang the park below, they’re called hanging valleys. Good places to graze cattle in the summer, if you can find a way to get cows into them. Hell in the winter, though. Snow comes early, piles deep, and stays late.»

Willow thought about it, then shook her head. «That doesn’t sound like Matt. He hated cold weather.»

«Is he a farmer?»

«If he were, he would have stayed in West Virginia,» Willow said dryly. «We — that is, the Moran family — owned several big farms before the war.»

«Is he a cattleman?»

She shook her head.

«Trapper?»

She shook her head again.

Caleb grunted. «I hear there’s gold in some of those high creeks.»

Willow flinched.

«God above,» Caleb said in disgust. «I should have known. Your fancy man is whoring after gold.»

She said nothing.

«Well, that explains it,» he muttered.

«What?»

«Why he left you,» Caleb said succinctly. «A man obsessed by yellow metal doesn’t give a damn for anything else — not wife, not child, nothing but the golden bitch.»

And least of all would he care for an innocent girl who gave her love and her body with never a thought for the future, Caleb thoughtgrimly. Poorlittle Rebecca. She never had a chance.

«Matt isn’t like that,» Willow said.

«Then why did he leave you alone so long that you forgot how to kiss a man? He should have come and gotten you when the war started,» Caleb said flatly, «and you know it as well as I do.»

There were other thoughts as well, ones he didn’t dare speakaloud. IfReno had been with Willow during the war, he wouldn’t have been in New Mexico, seducing my sister. He would have had his own fancy lady to take care of his lusts.

The condemnation in Caleb’s face was clear to Willow. She flushed, but said nothing. If she had been Matt’s wife, what Caleb said would have been true. But she was only Matt’s sister. Like his brothers, Matt had been gone more than ten years with just a few brief visits in between travels. He had no ties to North or South. He was owned by his love of the uninhabited West and the gold that winked like captured sunlight in wild mountain streams.

Silence returned until Caleb reined in abruptly, brought the spyglass to his eye, and swore viciously under his breath. He scanned the countryside all around but saw no other men. The two he had spotted cantered toward him openly, making no attempt to conceal their presence.

«What is it?» Willow asked after a moment.

«Comancheros. Two of them. Get out the shotgun. Don’t make a fuss about it, but keep it pointed between the two men. If they split up, you keep track of the one on the left. If he goes for a gun, give him both barrels and be quick about it. Hear me?»

«Yes,» Willow said tightly. «But I–I’ve never shot a man.»

Caleb’s smile was like a knife sliding from its sheath. «Don’t worry, southern lady. These aren’t men. They’re coyotes jumping around on their crooked hind legs.»

He pulled the rifle from its saddle scabbard, slipped the thong from his six-shooter, and waited. Nothing else was said while they watched the riders grow from pea-sized dots to life size. Willow thought theComancheros were going to gallop right over them, but at the last minute they reined in so sharply that their ponies sat hard on their hocks.

The ponies were small, unshod, and thin as slats. Despite that, they weren’t sweating or breathing hard from their long gallop through the meadow. Like the horses, the men were small, wiry, tough, and of mixed blood. The men were also dirty, edgy, and heavily armed. The man on the right was blond and blue-eyed beneath months of grime. The man on the leftwasmestizo.

From twenty feet away, the blue-eyed man called out, «Ola, Manfrom Yuma.»

«I see you, Nine Fingers,» Caleb said. «You’re a long way from where we last met.»

TheComanchero smiled, revealing one tooth of gold above and one black gap below. He looked at Willow. The blunt lust in his eyes made her skin cold.

«How much for her?» Nine Fingers asked.

«She’s not for sale.»

«I’ll give you a fat poke of gold.»

«No.»

Nine Fingers gave Willow another long appraisal. «Then how about I just rent her for a time?»

Caleb shifted slightly in the saddle. When Nine Fingers looked away from Willow, there was a six-shooter in Caleb’s right hand and a rifle in his left. At this range, the pistol was the more deadly of the two weapons.

«You’re a mite jumpy,» Nine Fingers said.

«Yes.»

Caleb’s voice was mild despite the rage tightening his gut. No woman, even one who was no better than she had to be, deserved what was in Nine Fingers’ pale blue eyes. The thought of theComanchero even looking at Willow, much less touching her with his filthy hands, made Caleb’s finger tighten on the six-gun’s trigger.

«Well, I guess I would be edgy, too, was I riding shotgun on a prime piece of woman-flesh and seven prime pieces of horseflesh.»

The otherComanchero spoke abruptly to Caleb. «You want Reno? I see him. I take you.»

«No thanks. I’m on another job right now.»

Nine Fingers laughed gutturally and said something to his friend about the Man from Yuma riding a yellow-haired pony harder and longer than a white-eyes fleeingComancheros.

Caleb looked quickly at Willow, wondering if she understood the mixture of coarse Spanish and Indian words. Her expression hadn’t changed.

«Seeing as howwe’reamigos, how about we ride that yellow pony for you,» offered Nine Fingers in English, spurring his horse closer as he spoke. «Then you’ll have time to chase Reno.»

The sound of the revolver being cocked was startlingly clear. Nine Fingers yanked back on the reins. The otherComanchero spoke quickly.

«You no want shoot, Yuma man. Bad men near. Ver ’ bad. Hear gun and come hell-running you bet.»

«That won’t be your problem,» Caleb said, looking at the twoComancheros. «You’ll be dead before the first echo comes back from the mountain.»